Laytonsville: From Crossroads to Community

09/06/2026

LAYTONSVILLE GETS ITS OWN MESONET

WHICH MEANS . . . WHAT?

Laytonsville area residents have had some interesting surprises with weather forecasts over the last few years. The TV forecasters tell us "Heat and humidity. . . scattered showers . . . chance of storms . . ." and then WHAM -- here comes another microburst and down go our trees and electrical wires. We did that just about a month ago. Don't forget the tornado that tore through the middle of Gaithersburg in June 2024.

One way to improve local forecasts is to establish a mesonet -- an interconnected network of multiple weather stations designed to track regional weather patterns. And now we have one for Laytonsville.

We're sharing links for the MoCo Show article explaining the new mesonet station and a couple of links to data pages.

https://mocoshow.com/2026/09/05/new-mesonet-weather-station-goes-online-in-laytonsville/

The Laytonsville station page: https://mesonet.umd.edu/laytonsville

Statewide data: https://mesonet.umd.edu/

09/04/2026

MONTGOMERY COUNTY’S OWN 250TH ANNIVERSARY

SEPTEMBER 6, 2026

Our county celebrates its 250th anniversary this weekend on Sunday, September 6, 2026. The Montgomery County Historical Society has provided a timeline of many significant events over those 250 years. Here's the link.
https://montgomeryhistory.org/timeline/

Laytonsville shows up pretty early on the timeline — in 1783. Where did they get that date? Our town government usually marks April 7, 1892 as the day of official incorporation, making the town “only” 134 years old, not 250.

Historians need a fact, some sort of official record or a document, to determine a date. In this case, 1783 is the initial settlement date chosen for Laytonsville because that is the year the local land tract, known as "Addition to Brooke Grove," first appears in official county tax assessments.

1783 makes sense. The years surrounding 1783 were a transformative period across our area. The Revolutionary War officially ended on September 3, 1783. That led to political reorganization, development, and movement across our area. During the war years, Baltimore had developed into a major market and port in the new nation. Brink and Sundown Roads became an important corridor to Baltimore markets. The old brick tavern at the crossroads was a comfortable rest stop for local farmers and for drovers moving herds of cattle and pigs eastward to market and for wagonloads of wheat traveling to Ellicott Mills.

Names of locations can change over the years. “Rockville” used to be “Williamsburg,” and “Olney” was once “Mechanicsville.” Same for us. On the 1790s map, our area shows up as “Crows,” a name from a land tract along Sundown Road. For most of the 1800s, this area was known as “Cracklin Town” from the Cracklin Tavern serving tasty crackling cornbread.

But all this local history is out there to read on our five wayside signs and our local history book. For this weekend, let’s wish Happy 250 Years to Montgomery County, and let’s look forward to many more good years to come.

08/28/2026

LAYTONSVILLE GOES ROLLER SKATING

NOW AND WAY BACK THEN

We received this video from Yianni, a Laytonsville guy, to share with you. He says, “Hi, I’m Yianni, a longtime Laytonsville resident. Me, my brother, and our childhood friends from town created a roller hockey team that competed in the Rockville inline hockey league and won the championship in our first season. We represented Laytonsville and would be honored and grateful if you could repost this on your page.

Okay. Congratulations to Yianni and the Laytonsville Bulldogs on their championship and their rapid rise to success. Enjoy their video. Go Bulldogs!

Here's the link to their reel.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1743170530223103


But this is a local history page, so let’s also take a look back at how roller skating used to happen around Laytonsville. Back in the 1950s and 60s, kids brought their skates to Laytonsville Elementary to skate on the upper blacktop areas and dare to take the thrilling ride down the slope. The “slope” vanished after one of the renovations, but it was a fun thing to do back in the days of adjustable metal roller skates with keys. Anywhere you had a sidewalk, a paved driveway, or a safe-enough parking lot was a good place to skate.

But if you wanted to skate in a real rink, you had to travel. During World War II, the wartime gasoline shortage meant that local people who used to be able to drive to Frederick or DC for entertainment had to find their fun somewhere closer. In 1943 the Order of United Mechanics in Damascus donated their union hall to become a sort of community recreation center. There was a potbelly stove to heat the upstairs for dancing, and a rented jukebox played music for the roller skaters in the basement.

After World War II ended, gasoline became plentiful again at the same time that roller skating was becoming more popular, but the new rinks that opened at that time were usually segregated. African American skaters could travel to DC’s new and upscale rink at Kalorama Road with live organ and R&B music.

In 1955 “Pop” and “Junebug” Wilson sold their farm on the site of Lakeforest Mall and opened Dalamar Bowling & Skating in town. The upstairs was the roller rink space, and the downstairs area was bowling. If you remember the Golden Bull restaurant, that was the site of Dalamar.

The next year, 1956, Congressional Roller Rink in Rockville opened. The building had been constructed in 1928 as an airplane hanger for Congressional Airport. After the airport closed, roller skating took over the hanger from 1956 to 1983. It’s gone now. A Hilton hotel is on the site today.

Segregation at these roller rinks ended on January 16, 1962 when Montgomery County banned discrimination in public accommodations – the first county in Maryland to legally outlaw this sort of racial discrimination in public places. This was a broad ordinance that applied to businesses, recreational facilities, and public spaces.

These days, the Laytonsville Bulldogs travel to the Rockville Sports Arena on Southlawn Court to practice and compete. Some skaters also recommend the Laurel Roller Skating Center if you prefer wooden floors. Please share your memories of roller skating in the comments. Do you recall Sunset Rink in Damascus? We think there was also a rink in Mount Airy, maybe? Not sure.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1743170530223103

08/24/2026

This definitely counts as local history.

Now it's not just the Sunshine General Store hamburgers that are famous. The cheeseburgers are also gaining recognition as "...one of Maryland’s most iconic bites." That's in a online "Where to Find the Best Cheeseburger in Every State."

The Sunshine Burger at Sunshine General Store in Brookeville has once again earned statewide recognition, this time being named Maryland’s best cheeseburger in Tasting Table’s “Where To Find The Best […]

08/22/2026

DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL HERE?

OR DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO DID?

You’re going to need to be well into your 70s or older to recognize this photo. This is the Laytonsville Elementary School that stood along Rt. 108 from 1904 to 1950. It was taken down after the current elementary school began classes in the fall of 1951.

As you may know, the Laytonsville History Center is working on an exhibit about the stories of your local schools, but we’ve hit a dead end with this one.

We know a bit of its history, but we really don’t know what it was LIKE to be a student here. Here’s the problem. Most of our members who grew up in Laytonsville attended the newer one-story brick building that’s here now, but not this one. We really need some help from former students who could share their memories of attending school here. If family members heard some good stories or any descriptions of the place, we would be grateful to hear about those, too.

What was the inside of the building like? Do you remember what the classrooms were like, or the cafeteria?

Do you have any memories of your teachers or the principal? Miss Grace Roberts? Mr. Charles O’Loughlin? Or Miss Gertrude Stanley, Miss Virginia Griffith, Miss Shapiro/Mrs. Brandt, Mrs. Ferguson, Mrs. Dorothy (Brooks) Andrews? See, we do know some names from the records, but we’d love to know more about them as people.

Do you remember anything about the playground? Do you have any pictures of the school or the students in those days? If you do, and you could just snap a picture of them with a phone and share them, that would be fantastic! As you can tell, the only photo we have of this school is from 1904. Someone must have taken a picture of something or somebody over the next 46 years.

You could share your recollections in the comments here. Another easy way to contact us at the History Center is by email at [email protected] Just “laytonsvillemd” – no dots -- .com.

08/08/2026

LAYTONSVILLE, “THE WAY THINGS USED TO BE”

Back in the summer of 1976, if you drove north or south of Laytonsville on Rt. 108, what would you see? A few homes, barns, stock enclosures, plus wide fields of corn, wheat, soybeans, turf, and pastures. From a local resident’s point of view, all that land looked productive. After all, agriculture feeds America. From a county planner’s point of view, though, it looked empty. Good place to build something, especially something Rockville doesn’t want.

For Laytonsville, that was the difference between the Bicentennial year of 1976 and the following year of 1977, when the years-long battle against a county landfill began.

In 1976, Laytonsville residents felt like looking back at their part of 180 years of American history. 1790: the earliest days when the newly cut road from Monocacy to Baltimore (Brink and Sundown) crossed Busey’s Road to the north (Rt. 108). John Layton’s saddle shop, the old brick tavern next to it, Cracklin Town, Rolling Ridge, the Layton house, Jacob Bowman’s store (still there) on Sundown Road, the early churches, Temperance Hall, the old one-room schools, the connections to Brookeville, Baltimore, and Georgetown – all of that became interesting. We can thank our schoolteachers, town government, and local newspaper coverage for helping to make that happen.

In 1977, after dealing with the county through protests and negotiations about the location and operation of the landfill, Laytonsville residents realized they needed to look forward to change and get involved with what would happen. There were good results over the years in terms of understanding and sharing our local history – the 1982 and 1992 anniversary celebrations of the town incorporation, Principal Laura Turner’s support of the Archives Room at Laytonsville Elementary, and the establishment of the Historical Center in the new Town Hall in 2002.

So here are a few photos from that summer of 1976, “the way things used to be” around this town. This is a combination of the slide show and another box of "July 1976" slides of houses in town.

Some of the slides had the name of the 1976 residents, and some were left blank. Please feel free to add or to correct any information about the people and the buildings in the comments.

08/05/2026

THE LAYTONSVILLE OF 1976

Part of the theme of Laytonsville’s 1976 Bicentennial slide show was that "Laytonsville" is not just a town inside town limits. It's a larger community of homes and farms united by people coming to town for school, shopping, church, friends, businesses, and so on. To include photos of the nearby areas, someone drove out in each direction and took a few pictures. The idea was to show what you might see as you left town and drove north, south, etc.

The first direction was out to the west along Brink Road. The buildings of that time are still there, for the most part, but the big change is many more homes between Laytonsville and Goshen.

Heading east from the crossroads on Sundown Road, the slide show focused on the fairly new park amenities. It also included one of the oldest structures in town -- Temperance Hall, now the Labyrinth Gallery and Meeting House.

08/03/2026

BACK TO THE BICENTENNIAL

HOW LAYTONSVILLE LOOKED IN 1976

Does anyone remember watching slide shows? All those little slides arranged in a carousel with someone clicking through, one slide at a time, and explaining each one? In the olden days before we had smartphone cameras, video apps, wireless casting to a TV, and so on, watching a slide show used to be a big deal.

So, back in 1976, Laytonsville made a slideshow about the town as a Bicentennial project.

We don’t know whose idea it was. Maybe Jean Mills, the mayor’s wife and chair of the Laytonsville’s Bicentennial Planning Committee, suggested the project? If anyone knows for sure, please let us know in the comments.

Take a look. Some aspects of this town never seem to change, but some do. There are a few pictures from the town’s Bicentennial parade, too. The parade was in early June of 1976.

There are 75 photos in all. We'll share them with you over the next few days.

07/24/2026

MONT. CO. NEWS CONFERENCE THIS MORNING

ABOUT WHITE'S FERRY

No, not a reopening, at least not right away. But -- maybe a bit of progress. If you’re new to the Laytonsville area, here’s a bit of background.

We've been sharing the historic aspects of news stories about White's ferry since 2020. Ferry service across the Potomac River at that spot goes back to the late 1700s (maybe 1778, or maybe 1786) under the name of Conrad's ferry. It wasn’t the most important ferry for Laytonsville, then known as Cracklintown. In those days, our present-day Brink Road connected directly to the area at the mouth of the Monocacy River, and Noland's ferry was more convenient.

But times changed, the other ferry lines vanished, and White’s ferry became quite convenient for anyone in Laytonsville who needed to get over to Loudoun County, Virginia. Yes, it did take about 20 minutes to cross the river via cable ferry. But when the alternative was a long, congested drive south to the Capital Beltway followed by a long, congested drive north to wherever you wanted to go, a slow, peaceful ride across the Potomac seemed like a very practical alternative.

First came the 2020 controversy about a suitable location for the old Confederate statue being removed from its Rockville location. Placing it next to the Potomac River seemed to make more sense from a Civil War maneuvers perspective, but its presence there still proved disturbing, and it was again removed from public sight.

But next came another aspect, disturbing in its own way. A business dispute with the owners of the landing spot on the Virginia side resulted in closing down the ferry completely. Maryland drivers who were accustomed to using the ferry regularly had hopes that the stoppage would be brief. No such luck. As always, the ultimate issue was $$$$. The news item linked below offers more details about the dispute.

Now Montgomery County is stepping in to try to achieve “an important milestone toward improving regional connectivity.” Maybe the news conference at 10:00 a.m. Friday will deliver good news to all of us who are tired of the “drive south, then drive north, just to drive west” way of reaching family, friends, or jobs in Northern Virginia.

https://wjla.com/news/local/whites-ferry-historic-montgomery-county-deal-potomac-poolesville-leesburg-loudoun-virginia-travel-cars-vehicles-rockland-farm-dispute-travel

07/18/2026

STORMS KEEP ROLLING THROUGH

THE LAYTONSVILLE - GOSHEN AREA

It was just a couple of weeks ago, the evening of July 4, when we had our last storm, or maybe the correct term this days is “microburst.” Then came the recent Code Purple and Code Red wildfire smoke, followed during the early morning of July 18 by another of these short but intense thunderstorms with damaging lightning. Our sympathy to all the local families who are still cleaning up storm damage and to our neighbor on Warfield Road who suffered house fire damage yesterday.

Is there any good news? Yes. The silver maple debris at Town Hall has been sawed up and cleared away. Our thanks to Goshen Enterprises, for that task.